


love hunt me down

by Mothbats



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/F, Multi, OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 13:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18181157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothbats/pseuds/Mothbats
Summary: Beauties and Beasts, and the sleepless nights between.





	love hunt me down

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the MGS Winter Games on tumblr forever ago, but as tumblr is now going to shit I'm moving all my prior works here. Title is a line from Touch by Daughter, which is a perfect song for these sad girls. 
> 
> The wiki isn’t terribly helpful for determining a timeline for these ladies so I wrote this as if they’re all still fairly young (16+?) and still in the early stages of therapy - enough that they’re somewhat more stable than they were, but still unhinged.
> 
> Look I love these girls and am a big gay so it's OT4 Time

Screaming Mantis did not know sleep. As always she was propped up in her bed, knees drawn to her chest as her mind moved on without her; it was an endless whirring in the silence of the room, overwhelming to one so used to the sounds of others, in her head or otherwise. She wasn’t sure she would ever learn to appreciate the quiet, her skin crawling with a sense of discontent, the feeling of being watched by something she couldn’t put her finger on. No, she would never be accustomed to this life, the way her body never felt like her own, just a doll on strings, lost in the labyrinth of her own internal torment.

She was out of bed before she realized the movement, bare feet on the metal floor sending a chill up her spine. She stumbled slightly; felt as though she was floating - if not for the cold and the rattle of metal, she could have believed she was. In the dark to her side, Laughing Octopus drew her attention with subdued giggles, wrapped tightly in her blanket, always subconsciously seeking comfort even in sleep. Had she been awake she would have clung to Mantis like her namesake, wrapped her wiry limbs about Mantis and asked where she was going; but she slept somewhat more soundly than the rest of them, Mantis moving close enough to drag her fingertips through Octopus’s pale hair in mimicry of affection. Her mind pulsed warmly against Mantis’s, her dreams abstract enough to not be a bother, soft with the sounds of the sea.

It was the creak of the other cot that had Mantis turning, tense though she knew she was in no danger here, knew it like she knew Octopus’s dreams. Raging Raven and Crying Wolf were awake now as well, watching her, eyes gleaming in the shadows. At some point Wolf had abandoned her own bed to crawl in with Raven, curled in beneath Raven’s chin with her lip trembling, Raven’s arm wrapped around the girl’s thin torso and gripping her night shirt. Trained together, tortured together – they all seemed to have a second sense for when one of them was on the move. Mantis tilted her head as she looked back at them, assessing what she could feel without thinking about how she could feel it at all, as close to calm as any of them got.

“You do not sleep,” Raven whispered, her voice eternally hoarse and rough from her yelling. There was a question there, Mantis knew, but purposefully ignored it, turning away as though to leave. Their room was not allowed windows and the door was typically locked, too much of a risk for their vulnerabilities; instead the sterile, lab-like box they had been stuck in glowed only with lights from the nearby computer and surveillance system, casting them all in a sickly green hue. Raven hissed, her ire always so easily earned. “Just where do you think you’re-“ Raven was cut short by Mantis whirling back sharply, eyes narrowing and cutting the other woman into silence. Strange how easily that came to Mantis, how she could simply will something and have it done.

Even so, Mantis knew what Raven meant to say. She heard it in her head even if in her ears there was quiet; where was she going? Truthfully, Mantis didn’t know. She had learned to pick the locks on the doors months ago, biding her time by wandering aimlessly, wishing to let this ache that had settled into her body wear down until she forgot herself again. Maybe then she could finally get some sleep. Wolf’s soft sniffling broke the tense silence, her eyes gleaming wet with tears.

“Stay,” Wolf said, her mouth forming the words more than saying them. Wolf had always been the softest of them all, even softer than Octopus, hungry for stability and family and seeking it out among her fellow damaged monsters. It almost made Mantis want to laugh like Octopus, to beat Wolf until she realized that they were nothing, less than nothing, mere tools to be used and discarded. Tools did not need a family, did not need comfort or love.

But Raven and Wolf appeared to be challenging that, if the way they slept with their bodies intertwined meant anything. Together they were more peaceful, their tumultuous minds that had heaved with emotions quieter than before. This was not their first time in a bed together, and Mantis knew they were finding ways to make their own amity separate from the tests that twisted them further and further from their own psyches. Mantis refused to believe it was jealousy that made her stomach knot when she looked at them.

“You would be more comfortable without me,” Mantis replied, her voice deep with exhaustion, husky from lack of use. Her fists tightened at her sides, unbidden, this exchange grating on her. Perhaps it was the way they looked at her like they could help, like they wanted to invite her in; even Raven’s perpetual anger had softened as she held to Wolf, looking more her age than she had any right to after the hell they had been through. How could they act so normal when their lives were anything but? Raven scoffed at her words, sitting up and crossing her arms over her chest.

“We’re a unit, and you’re our commander. You think we like having to hunt you down every time you disappear?” Raven seethed, nails digging into her arms. “You’d probably feel better if you stopped acting like we’re such a fucking burden and actually stick around to get to know us.” She eyed Mantis with a challenge, always the one to push their fledgling leader and find exactly where that line in the sand was. Lashing out was Raven’s way of finding control, and usually Mantis accepted it with the slight exasperation of an elder sibling being annoyed by their younger. Usually.

“What do you need me here for, to hold your hand while you sleep? Or do you think you can _help_ me?” Mantis mocked, taking a swaggering step forward, enticing Raven to upset. It didn’t take much to make her bristle. “I watched them drag each of you in, you know; one by one, forging you in the fires of your own personal hells. They made me watch, they wanted me to know your minds, to understand them, to have ultimate control, when I don’t even have control of myself.” Mantis was almost at the bedside now, eyes locked with Raven’s and holding her in place with nothing more than the weight of her gaze, the ease of it frightening even herself. Mantis felt sick to her stomach, admitting these memories that she would rather have left dormant.

“You think any of us do?!” Raven snapped, jumping forward and clutching the edge of her bedding, a monster about to pounce. Wolf hiccuped and held to Raven’s shoulder to keep her in place, shaking her head as if to tell her bed-mate not to do this. “Nobody out there gives a fuck about us; they don’t want us in control! So instead of acting so high and mighty, why don’t you realize that your place is with us!” Raven was poised to leap from the bed and Mantis swallowed, the rage an onslaught against her mind that made it throb. And truly, Raven wasn’t wrong – the people who had brought them together didn’t want them to be well. All they ever wanted of the four of them was to drag them further into mindless despair.

“We are all afraid,” Wolf’s voice was a soft wash of calm in the night, beckoning Raven to be still and relax as much as she was able, the other young women biting back an automatic retort that they were not afraid of anything. It was such an obvious lie, yet one that they couldn’t help but make, trying to keep a wall between them and the hopelessness of their situation. Only Wolf, in her own strange way, was able to be honest with her emotions and tell them plainly. Wolf beckoned Mantis closer, tender as she said, “Let us try, so that we might have you.”

Mantis didn’t know what to make of that at first, but with Wolf easing her forward and the ensuing contact, she could feel the beginnings of understanding squirming through her mind. The bed was hardly large enough for one, let alone three, but Raven begrudgingly made room for Mantis to join them, to feel the comfort of company on both sides – something she had long denied herself. How much longer did she have in her head, how much longer did any of them have, before they went truly insane and none of this mattered?

“I feel like I’m losing days and years, like time doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes I feel like I’m someone else, like I’m losing my mind.” Mantis admitted, shivering from the excess of emotion, breath coming quick – she didn’t want to admit fear, even as it rolled off of her in waves, Wolf stroking her back as Raven leaned into her side. “I had decided, if being a beast is the only way to find peace, then that’s what I’ll be. Even if I don’t want this, even if I don’t-“ Mantis stuttered out, chest tight as it felt like all the air had left her lungs, hands tangling painfully in her hair. She had never wanted to talk about these things, and even now it stuck in her throat painfully, unsure of how to put it all into words instead of just screaming.

“Then we’re all beasts together,” Octopus’s soft voice spoke up in the darkness, all eyes moving to where she began to sit up in her bed, disheveled and somber. How long she had been awake, Mantis didn’t know, but she had never heard Octopus sound so delicately serious before. “I’ve seen humanity, and I think I would rather be a beast, with other beasts who know the truth of it.”

Octopus looked up through the fringe of her hair and Mantis sucked in a breath, understanding now why Raven had always reacted so viscerally to her aloofness, why Wolf looked at her with unrestrained sadness; they had never denied what Mantis said to be true, they had merely wanted one more companion for their side, one more monster that was willing to fight tooth and claw to preserve their tainted, wild natures. The intention was there, even if it had been unclear at first.

“Beasts, then,” Raven agreed with a snort, a lopsided smile that looked more as if she was baring her teeth. Wolf was nodding too, no longer so forlorn. Octopus began to unfurl from her blanket cocoon and left it behind, coming to join them with a pitiful creak of the ancient cot. Raven had to shuffle over to accommodate, leaving Octopus space to soothe Mantis’s hands out of her hair, holding them as Mantis trembled. Octopus even giggled, but the sound didn’t match the resolved look on her face at all; it would have been an unnerving gesture on anyone else, but the disconnect between the two made Mantis pause, overcome with a desire to kiss Octopus’s downturned mouth, to swallow that ever-present laughter.

Perhaps it was just her bestial nature coming out, but Mantis allowed herself to indulge – it was nothing more than a chaste press of lips that left her skin tingling, the remnants of Octopus’s squeak of delight when the other woman realized what had happened. Raven laughed at the surprised ‘o’ formed by Octopus’s mouth, pulling Octopus away from Mantis and toward herself to give her a second kiss edged with hunger, always so jealous of being left out. Whether giving or watching, it seemed both sent a small trill of electricity through Mantis’s stomach, suddenly hyper-aware of the way Wolf was holding to her back with her fingers teasing under the edge of Mantis’s shirt.

There was an aimlessness to be expected with such inexperience, but it seemed to not matter to any of them in the moment, the small bed quickly becoming not enough for the way they all wanted to stretch out and move on top of it. It was Wolf who thought to overturn it entirely, throwing the mattresses together on the dusty floor along with their blankets and pillows - a real den for beasts. As close as they were Mantis could read their contentedness, the warmth of protection and understanding soothing her body and soul for the first time in her memory.

They collapsed together, a tangle of bodies in a comfortable embrace, the press of lips and touch of hands as good as words for all it conveyed to one another – and squeezed between them all, Screaming Mantis was able to find something akin to peace.


End file.
